


before.

by rivainitea



Series: Mahariel March [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: #MaharielMarch, M/M, Trans Mahariel, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivainitea/pseuds/rivainitea
Summary: it's easy to bond with your new lover over leading your ex lover to death. how easy is it to start anew when the dead wont stay dead, however?
Relationships: Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Male Mahariel/Tamlen (Dragon Age), Morrigan/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Tamlen/Male Warden (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai/Male Mahariel, Zevran Arainai/Male Warden
Series: Mahariel March [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650520
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	before.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is part of @witchesgonewild (on twitter) and i's new project, mahariel march! feel free to join :]  
> anyways! samir mahariel and shay mahariel are siblings, shay belongs to @witchesgonewild.  
> it's easier to understand it all if you read my other oneshot, "to dance with him" after this one !! enjoy!

Turnip and rabbit stew steam around the camp as Leliana played her lute with joy, her skilled fingers changing the atmosphere as Zevran hummed along. Samir loved cooking and they really didn’t mind it. It was better than Alistair or Shay’s cooking anyhow, and Rivaini kitchenry is appreciated.

It had been a relatively calm day. Not much fighting, and when there was some fighting, the group emerged victorious as always, which gave them a bit of time to rest. Oh, and how they needed it! Samir could hear an angry Alistair in the background, groaning in pain from Zevran’s massages, and then a not-so-genuinely-insulted Zevran complaining about the number of knots on the grey warden’s back.

If you asked the group about Morrigan and Shay, they would obviously say “No! Of course not. They are simply friends.” Yet that was not the entire truth. Friends they were, and lovers as well. Hm, perhaps lovers isn’t even the best word to describe them. Companions? Travelers? Quiet little beings who are unapologetically drawn to each other and have grown to need and admire each other though they would never admit it? Ah, well. Lovers?  
Samir could see Morrigan cupping Shay’s cheeks tenderly in the corner of his eyes, and smiled to himself. He had not seen his sister so content since the incident. An incident that they do not talk about, though they know when one is thinking about it.

However, what did peace truly mean in blighted days? Days of arch-demons and darkspawn stalking and lurking in the shadows? Days of ghouls, of regret and memories, buried deep. Peace was something so fickle. Perhaps it still is. There was something in Samir that did not want it to break, of course. Peace is something they can rarely find, something they can rarely enjoy or indulge with. 

Both Alistair and Shay had paused their current activities to look at Samir expectantly, then at the dense forest and its secrets and promises of doom. The elf did not look nor did he stop stirring the huge cauldron with food, it was almost a trance. He missed it all, well, all that he could remember. Rivain was extremely blurry yet so damn familiar, and food was always something that comforted him. The distant feeling of his mom calling him to eat dinner, the smell of rosemary and cinnamon in the air, illuminating the place he once called home. 

“Uh, Shay? Samir? Does anyone else hear this?” Alistair asked with fear deep in his chest, like the first time they were in that tower, left to die, were it not for Flemeth. He was not easily shaken. He had seen much now, but nothing scared him like the thought of the Taint taking over him and making him succumb to it. 

“This what?” He snapped out of his thoughts quickly this time, hands still stirring, he raised an eyebrow and switched his focus to his sister, who looked just as weirded out as Alistair, but a bit more scared.

“Sounds like a darkspawn. Sounds like… Like your name.”

“Great. I was hoping I was just hallucinating.” The Wardens were used to hearing things that aren’t really there, seeing things that can’t be there, feeling things that do not exist. Samir had learned how to brush those feelings off and remain calm, but that was before. He knew the dead never truly stayed dead, that death was just as fragile as life, and that nothing in life is certain, not even passing away. But to hear his heart beat again like this, to feel his blood rushing through his veins so nervously, to rub his own eyes so distrustfully. It would not be the first time his eyes had failed him, but this could not be a simple coincidence, because the whole party could very clearly see the man lurking out of the shadows, almost dragging himself to the camp. 

Wynne quickly grabbed her staff and Shale was just as ready, mana flowing in their crystals that shined a great deal against her rocky shell. Sten did not take his eyes off the man even for a second, feeding his own mind information and noticing something only someone from the Beresaad could. 

“Samir?” A weak voice was heard and it echoed, though the camp was full, Samir was definitely empty, and so it rang like the cry of an angry Shriek.

“... No. No. No. No thanks.” “Whose idea was this? Who was the idiot who thought of this?!” Samir slowly began, but finished as a yell. It felt like a sick joke, like the Maker or the Creators were crushing him slowly in their hands, then leaving him in the Void to rot. But no, he was not the one rotting here, not at all. 

“Holy shit.” Shay got up readily, walking carefully towards her brother. 

“Shay?! Shay?!! Are you seeing this? Am I going insane?” Samir was never one to hide his own feelings, he was open and honest and always let himself overflow with the dance that his feelings showed him, but Shay never thought she would ever see Samir yelling at her while his eyes overflowed with tears, his face red and eyes covered in despair. Not again.

“It’s… No nightmare,” The shriek replied, and suddenly nothing else mattered to Samir. Not death, not life, not its never-ending cycle. Why was this such a surprise? He had seen the dead come back to life, but for once in his life, he wished they wouldn’t. Just this one time. Oh and how selfish he felt. Why would he not want him back? Why would he not be happy? Was it the fact that he still ached for him? Was it the fact that he had already let another man into his life, and while he was not monogamous at all, it felt like betrayal. It felt like firm hands around his throat, shoving a sword deep inside. 

And while he said nothing, he ran, almost tripping on his own feet, and hugged the shriek. Incautious, idiot of a man. It was nothing like a hug, nothing like a living being, nothing like love. Nothing like anything that has ever felt alive. His skin was bloody and ashy and necrotic. But he knew it was his skin. He knew, no matter how tainted and twisted it was. How could he forget the arms who hugged him so many times, the skin he kissed so many times, the lips he stared at for so many hours? 

“That’s... A talking darkspawn?” Zevran asked, obvious disbelief in his voice. He thought he had seen it all. What was next? A loving Broodmother?

“No.” Shay looked at Zevran, who was quick to look for his daggers.

“No?” He replied, stopping in his tracks, raising an eyebrow at Samir’s sister.

“Tamlen.”

“What? Pardon me?”

“His name is Tamlen.”

“Surely I misheard you? You said his name is Tamlen? The man from Haven? Samir’s… Regret?”

“Regret, maybe. He… He didn’t tell you much, did he?” Shay chuckled. How ugly. 

“Why would he? I do not expect him to give me more than he wants to.”

“Tamlen is… Was a brother to me. He was Samir’s-”

“Boyfriend. Boyfriend. He was my… He was mine.” Samir cried out loud, his grip firm on Tamlen’s shoulders, looking for some sort of sign in the other’s eyes. Something that said “wake up”, or “this isn’t real”. Instead, all he found was the shriek’s left hand holding his hands lightly, his thumb pressing on his skin, pleading for mercy. 

“... Samir,”

“How?! How? Is this real? Tamlen, is this real?!” He cursed himself for not looking thoroughly. He was livid. He was also livid when everyone around him but Shay told him that there was no hope and they should appreciate the fact that they were alive. He does not try to remember much, and all that he can truly remember is him yelling back at his keeper, "Why does it even matter now?! What good is life now?!" And quickly apologizing and running to the woods, Shay following him. He cried so much, cried so hard, cried so painfully. 

“Lethallin…” Tamlen said softly, in a tone Samir had heard so many times. It meant he didn’t want to keep doing something, meant he wanted to give up or go back, or meant that he was distrusting of something, or meant that he wanted Samir to listen to him. 

“Oh no. Don’t even dare. We need to try to heal you, please. I wasn’t there when you needed me. I need to be here now.” 

“No hope for me. No more.” First Duncan, then Marethari, then Tamlen himself. All of them, saying there was no hope.

“Tamlen, we have to try. I killed you once, I can’t do it again!”

“Samir,”

“No!”

“Sammy,”

A soft gasp, a rotting hand on his cheeks. 

“You have never and will never kill me. I do not want to hurt you. End this now, before it takes over me.”

“Well, I can’t hurt you!”

“It won’t. It won’t hurt me. I am not alive anymore, give me mercy. I… I haven’t been alive since… Since us. Imagine being loved by you? All-!” The calling broke his words, his voice weak and shaky, “All that I wanted, I had. Please,”

How wretched, how ugly, how virtuous. He wanted to dig his own grave and shove himself there with Tamlen. But he could not. Not when he was so obviously, furiously, regretfully alive, and the other was not.

Creators save him, he couldn’t believe he was actually doing it. He never wanted this to end this way, perhaps it was best for him to rot with Tamlen, he thought. But no, this was exactly why he begged for his end. He had watched for long enough. He could not let Shay hurt just like Samir did, he could not let the other elf hurt as well. Oh, and who was he? Blonde hair, dark skin, tattoos and a sultry accent. He was glad he was the one Samir wanted. 

He closed the other man’s eyes gently, and rested his head on his shoulders gently, one hand making sure the shriek would not open his eyes or lift his head up, hand tenderly caressing the back of his neck. No one could mistake the sound that came after that, however. The sound of Samir’s daggers slowly being unsheathed, the sound of regret, and then,

“Tel'enfenim, lethallin,  
Irassal ma ghilas  
Ma garas mir renan  
Ar lasa mala revas”  
(Never fear, friend.  
Wherever you shall go,  
Follow my voice  
I give you your freedom.)

Usually, Samir enjoyed the sound of metal piercing flesh, of dripping blood. “You have rather… Macabre tastes as well, don’t you?” But now, how could he? Murder was always something he found interesting, but nothing about this was murder. Nothing about this involved taking a life. There was only love and death, it’s all love and death for now, this Samir knew. But all this was, was purpose. A new one, an old one. All this was, was mercy. All this was, was rebirth.  
“Thank you.”

********

“Would you… Like to speak of this?” Said the Antivan.

“Not now. I would rather not speak at all.”

“Mhhm, of course. No need to. Would you like our company? As quiet or loud as you wish it to be.” He wrapped a blanket around the other elf, who sat in the woods, back against the trunk of a tree.

It was alive, he thought. That was a nice change. 

Samir nodded.

“Would you like some of the soup you made as well?” His sister showed him the bowl of food she held in her hands.

He nodded again.

There was no shame in the death of your ex-love, only comfort. They all knew this too well. 

“Morrigan wanted me to tell you that she doesn’t want to bother you, but she gives us her sympathies and condolences.”

“So do I.”

Samir smiled weakly. Not just to himself, but to them as well. He let them in.

“Would you like me to stay for the night?”

Let me stay, caro mio, let me stay, Zevran thought. 

Another nod. 

“Then I shall stay.”

Samir looked at his sister expectantly. 

“Always, Samir. Always.”


End file.
